Amazon’s Bezos: Echo & Alexa Ushering In Golden Age of Music

Jeff Bezos says the next major growth area for the music industry is in the home – an area where the Amazon Echo has been, to some, an unexpected hit. As of early 2017, Amazon has sold over 12 million Echo devices. The success surprised many, including Bezos himself who recently stated the company has thousands of engineers working on the Alexa platform and Echo products.

Over the Christmas holiday, the Dot was the number one selling item on Amazon.com. During the interview, Steve Boom, VP of Digital Music at Amazon, stated that “we’re only really at the very beginning of the voice interface”. With recent bold partnerships such as Ford vehicles integrating with Alexa, one can’t help but feel excitement for what the next several years holds for Echo and the Alexa platform.

Amazon is leaping into the market with Amazon Music Unlimited, a subscription-based music streaming service launched in late 2016. The service will compete head to head with the current market leader Spotify, Apple Music, and Jay-Z’s TIDAL.

In a recent interview with Billboard, Amazon’s Top Executive Jeff Bezos also mentioned his growing collection of Echo and Dot devices in his home, leading to him and his family listening to more music. Bezos has devices in his kitchen, bathrooms, living bedroom, kids’ room, and more.

Amazon offers the service for $7.99/mo or $79/yr for Prime members, notably less expensive when customers subscribe with the Prime bundle. The model is consistent and clear — Amazon wants all of its customers to subscribe to Prime, and it will continue to increase that value proposition. A recent example of Amazon beefing up the Prime bundle was their 2016 acquisition of video game streaming provider Twitch. Shortly after the $1 Billion acquisition, Twitch and Amazon debuted Twitch Prime.